Wagner College men's basketball team readies for NEC grind

Wagner guard Latif Rivers will sit out Thursday's NEC opener against Monmouth due to a suspension.Advance File Photo/Bill Lyons

Wagner opens its Northeast Conference season at home Thursday night against Monmouth, a team it has beaten in six of the last seven meetings and one that hasn’t posted a winning record in six years, which all sounds pretty comfortable.

Add that struggling Monmouth has lost five in a row, and been outrebounded by 12.8 per game in those defeats and you have to think the Seahawks have a pretty substantial edge.

But there are issues for Wagner, and they are not inconsequential.

For starters, there will be no Latif Rivers in the lineup for Wagner.

After finally coming back last week from an eight-game idle stretch due to recurring discomfort caused by summer knee surgery, the go-to Seahawk junior guard will be sitting out the Monmouth game due a one-game suspension handed out for an end-of-game scrap in last March’s league tournament semifinal loss to Robert Morris.

Wagner swept the series last season with a come-from-behind 89-79 win in January at Monmouth, and 74-67 win at Spiro five weeks later.

In the victory at the Shore, Wagner was losing until the closing minutes when Rivers sailed in a couple of contested, game-altering 3-pointers on his way to 28 points.

In fact, Rivers has averaged a heady 22.6 points in his three outings vs. Monmouth. Needless to say, the Seahawks will miss him Thursday.

“When he’s in the game I feel we have a guy on the floor who can make a shot on the perimeter,” said coach Bashir Mason, whose offense has struggled much of the season.

Then there’s the health status of team scoring and rebounding leader, Jonathon Williams.

The rugged 6-foot-5 power forward missed Saturday’s 68-63 overtime win against Penn with a hip flexor.

“I’ll be ready to go for Monmouth,” he declared prior to that game. 

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The Seahawks were the No. 3 choice behind reigning champion LIU and No. 2 pick Robert Morris in the preseason coaches poll.

That outcome made sense given that Wagner ended last year with a 15-3 NEC record (25-6 overall) — good for second place to LIU (25-9, 16-2) — and that the Seahawks then lost to RMU in the conference tournament.

And remember that either LIU or Robert Morris have finished in no worse than a tie for first place over the last five years, and that either the Blackbirds or the Colonials have won the league’s tournament the last four years.

Wagner seemed a natural No. 3 back then.

There has been a twist since that poll was taken, however.

While the Seahawks have struggled with Rivers’ balky knee, they do expect him to play the rest of the season in a relatively healthy state.

The Nos. 1 and 2 picks have not been as lucky.

LIU star center and current conference Player of the Year Julian Bond is gone for the season due to an ACL injury.

And projected RMU post presence, lanky Lijah Thompson, went down with a season-ending knee injury before the first week of preseason was over.

The injuries do seem to change the complexion at the top of the league. 

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The Bryant Bulldogs (7-4) are the surprise team of the NEC this season, and a long way removed from last year’s 1-13 start.

Picked to finish 10th in the preseason poll, coach Tim O’Shea’s club has already pulled off a pair of stunning non-conference road upsets.

Bryant, in its first year of eligibility for the NEC tournament, defeated Boston College 56-54 early in the season, then traveled to Bethlehem, Pa., and upset Lehigh and its NBA lottery pick guard C.J. McCollum 80-79.

“So far, things probably couldn’t have worked out any better,” admitted O’Shea, who has been favored with the addition of his deep-shooting nephew Joe O’Shea (7.2 ppg), a Holy Cross transfer, and fellow guard Dyami Starks (16.9 ppg), a Columbia transfer.